As he is incomplete, despite being created after Ugo he ages quickly, and appears old. Due to the continued degradation of his body, there are deep, crack-like creases in it. To compensate for his insufficient Azoth he constantly requires Azoth extracted from the blood of animals; this is why Hewie was captured.

He has a cruel disposition. He believes that understanding emotions is unneeded in the pursuit of alchemical knowledge. He does, however, love women, and whilst scoring Ugo for ignoring such a noble mission he also felt jealousy - an emotion unknown to him - towards him.

His master, Lorenzo, views Riccardo as a useless failure. This is not due to his physical defect that causes him to age unusually quickly, but because he is unable to understand human emotion. Riccardo himself believes that emotions are unnecessary in the quest for the knowledge to become a master alchemist, opposing Lorenzo. Driving out Lorenzo, he holds the true power over the castle.

He has Ugo killed in an accident in order to recover the true Azoth from him so that he can fix his defects, but it is at this point that he learns that Ugo's Azoth has already been inherited by his daughter, Fiona; this leads him to think that by having Fiona give birth to him he can create an "original Riccardo" rather than a copy of Aureolus.